Chapter 7 - MARGARET CHOSE A SIDE
Margaret looked ten years older than she had at the mansion.
No pearls.
No driver.
No perfect hair.
Just a black coat and an expression I had never seen on her before.
Shame.
Brenda smiled.
“You came.”
Margaret ignored her.
She looked at me.
“Did Andrew hit you before that night?”
The question surprised me.
“No.”
“Threaten you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I almost laughed.
“You called me trash for four years.”
She closed her eyes.
“I did.”
“You made every dinner feel like an audition I could never pass.”
“I know.”
“You enjoyed humiliating me.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
That was new.
She looked at Brenda.
“But whatever I did to Mariana does not make what you did right.”
Brenda stood.
“Your son helped destroy my father.”
“Your father destroyed himself.”
“My father died alone.”
“So did my husband.”
Brenda’s face twisted.
Margaret continued.
“Victor had another family. Another child. Another life. I found out after the funeral.”
“You knew about me?”
“Not your name.”
Brenda went still.
“I knew there was a daughter.”
“And you did nothing.”
“I was angry.”
“At a child?”
“At him.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“And I let that anger become cruelty.”
For the first time, I saw something familiar in Brenda.
A woman who had spent years building herself around a wound.
The difference was what she chose to do with it.
Brenda threw the flash drive onto the pew.
“I want Rafael prosecuted.”
“If evidence supports it,” I said, “then he should face it.”
She stared at me.
“You’d turn on your own father?”
“No.”
“I’d stop protecting him from consequences.”
That was not the answer she expected.
Her phone rang.
Andrew.
She looked at the screen and smiled.
“He thinks I’m meeting an investor.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I can get his company back.”
“You can’t,” I said.
“No.”
Brenda picked up the drive.
“But he can burn yours down.”
The meaning hit me a second too late.
My phone buzzed.
A fire alarm notification from Escalante Capital.
Then another.
Server room access breach.
Gabriel called.
“Mariana, get out of there.”
“What happened?”
“Someone used your credentials at headquarters.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“Andrew has your old phone.”
I remembered the night of our anniversary dinner.
I had upgraded.
Andrew said he would dispose of the old device.
He never did.
The phone still held an authenticated corporate token.
Brenda started toward the exit.
I grabbed her arm.
“You gave it to him.”
She smiled.
“I gave him a door.”
Margaret stepped in front of her.
“What did he do?”
Brenda’s smile faded.
“He was supposed to copy the San Esteban archive.”
“Supposed to?”
My blood ran cold.
“He said he wanted leverage.”
“Brenda.”
She looked genuinely uncertain now.
“I didn’t tell him to start a fire.”
We ran outside.
Smoke was already visible over Midtown.
At Escalante headquarters, firefighters filled the street.
My father was outside.
Alive.
Gabriel met me at the barricade.
“The fire is contained.”
“The servers?”
“Primary archive survived.”
“What did Andrew take?”
“We don’t know.”
Then my father looked across the street.
A black sedan pulled away from the curb.
Andrew was in the back seat.
May you like
And beside him sat the one person who should never have had access to our systems.
Our chief financial officer.
